The Brother Code
by moonfairy13
Summary: Minerva McGonagall needs to speak to the Weasley brothers, urgently. Hermione is about to take a portkey to New York and begin a new life, and it's their fault. Can anyone stop her?


Molly Weasley was just about to send Arthur into the living room to gather the rest of her family around the dining table for Sunday lunch when the floo roared into flame and Minerva McGonagall stepped through.

"Molly, I need to speak to your boys. As many as you have here, please, and as soon as possible."

"I have all of them, Minerva, there's a roast in the oven. You're welcome to eat with us. What HAVE they done now?"

"I don't have an abundance of time, Molly. Would you join us, please? That way, I can explain to everyone at once?"

"Of course. Tea?"

"No, thank you. Perhaps after." Minerva was trying hard to not be sharp with her old friend. It likely wasn't her fault that this had happened, although things might not have reached this point if Molly had spotted the problem and intervened. But what was done was done, and there was no use wishing for the past to change.

"Messrs Weasley," said the witch who had taught them all, from the age of eleven, once Molly had led her into the living room. She looked around as she addressed the six redheaded men. They each adored her and feared her, in almost equal measure, and they began to shuffle and look at each other, wondering what they had done.

"Ms Granger is in my office," she said. "With a portkey. Which will take her, in approximately forty-five minutes time, to New York. Where she is apparently planning to relocate and try to find a job at MACUSA. She plans to stay there for the foreseeable future and build a new life there."

There was a stunned silence, broken only by a gasp from Molly. "But I though she was coming for lunch? It's almost ready."

Minerva put a hand on Molly's arm as she continued to address the men. "I take it none of you already knew that?" A glance at each of them in turn confirmed her suspicion that this was a surprise to all of them. Three of them looked confused, one was dismayed, and two were clearly horrified.

Ron was the first to speak. "No. Why would she move there?"

"Well, it took me a while to get to the bottom of that myself. She didn't want to tell me and had only come to say goodbye. But she was upset, and I eventually managed to get it out of her." Minerva looked around the group again. "The short answer is that she is leaving because of some cultural convention that the six of you have created, which has been described to her as 'The Brother Code'."

"What?" Bill and Charlie, the eldest two sons, looked at each other in confusion. They had created The Brother Code, more than a decade ago. It had helped the two good-looking young men to maintain their close relationship by reminding them that their Weasley family blood was thicker than the fleeting attraction that either of them might have for any given witch. Having come to blows one October evening in the Gryffindor common room over a pretty Ravenclaw prefect, they had agreed that they would never again vie for any witch's affections and that, if one brother declared his attraction to a particular woman, none of the others could then pursue her.

The principle had served them well and they had taught and stressed the value of it to the four younger brothers who followed them.

"How does Hermione know about that?" Charlie asked.

"From Oliver Wood," McGonagall told him. "She learned about it when she was walking through Diagon Alley on the way to see one of you last night. She overheard a rather drunken Wood joking outside the pub with one of his female teammates who apparently likes Charlie." Charlie managed to stop himself grinning and asking for her name, but only just. "Hermione heard Wood telling the young woman that she had better say something to Charlie ASAP and hope none of his brothers had seen her first. Ms Granger demanded a fuller explanation from Mr Wood about his comment, and he apparently he was only too happy to give it. He seems very au fait with the code and its rules; it's clearly well discussed amongst your male friends."

"But why is she going to New York?" Ron sounded confused. Bill and Charlie looked at each other in horror and Percy groaned. George swore under his breath and Fred's head tipped backwards.

"Oh no, please…" he breathed.

"Is that not obvious, Ron?" Bill asked. "it sounds like she likes one of the rest of us, but she thinks the Code means we'll say no, because you liked her first." He looked at his old professor for confirmation and she gave a small nod.

"I did though!" Ron sounded slightly petulant.

"We know, Ron," Percy reached for his brother's arm, patting it in reassurance. "But it didn't work out, did it?"

Ron shrugged. He hadn't really been confronted with having to acknowledge this by anyone until now, but Percy was right. He and Hermione had skipped around each other for years and then Hermione had kissed him during the final battle. And then, just hours later, she had confessed that, while she had thought for a long time that she liked him in a romantic way, it turned out that she had mistaken her feelings. She had hinted that she might like someone else even then, that she had muddled up two different kinds of affection, but Ron hadn't wanted to know any more.

"I spose," he said, a bit petulantly. Three months had passed and nothing had happened since, so he should probably concede that they were a lost cause.

"We should have thought of this and put in a contingency clause," Bill said quietly to Charlie, who nodded.

"Just never anticipated it. We were kids … back then we didn't think we'd ever want to get married or have anything serious."

"I'm not blaming you for something you created when you were teenagers," Minerva told the eldest two men. "But surely more than one of you must have been aware of what was happening? Even I noticed the flirting going on during the repairing of the castle, so I feel sure it can't have escaped everybody's attention." She looked at each of them.

"And as for you, Mr Weasley…" As Minerva turned towards the sofa on which the twins were sitting, she was surprised to see that Fred was no longer in the room. "Oh," she said, looking at George, who was himself looking towards the fireplace from which his twin had quietly disappeared.

"I think he already took your point and grasped the urgency of the situation, Professor," the younger twin said, with a wry smile.

With a whoosh, Fred appeared in the fireplace in the Headmistress' office, to find a tired Hermione sitting on the sofa, being cuddled and fed biscuits by his sister, who had flooed herself to Hogwarts the moment she heard why McGonagall had come. Marching quickly across the room and skidding to his knees in front of her, Fred took Hermione's hands in his and ensured that both of his thumbs were touching the object that she was holding between them. He didn't want to take the risk that she would take that portkey and spin off to another continent without him.

"I don't care about any fucking code," he told her, eyes wide and dark. "I never did. I thought you'd know that Georgie and I don't really do rules. I just wasn't completely sure how you felt… I'm still not, and I was confused when you didn't turn up last night." One of his hands reached up to stroke her hair before he wrapped it around hers again. "I didn't want to push you, what with us all having nightmares and working out how to recover. I had dinner and wine ready. I was going to tell you that I cared for you and that I was planning to talk to Ron … but you didn't come." He nodded to the matchbox in her fingers. "I'm not letting go of this, love. I'm going to hold this portkey with you until it leaves with both of us attached. Or I'll blast it into space with my wand right now if you say the word."

"What word, Fred? Tell me what you want? I've got no resilience at the moment, no capacity for being dicked about. And I can't lose anyone else. That's why I thought a fresh start might be a better plan."

"Please don't go, love. Please stay in England and be with me. I want us to get in that fireplace and go back to The Burrow and tell them we're together for as long as you'll have me and anyone who has a problem with that can fu…"

His expletive was silenced by the application of Hermione's lips to his own. She pulled him towards her and dived into the kiss as if he was something she wanted to learn. Which, in fact, he was; she wanted to learn every contour of his face, his body; to learn how to pleasure him. Lips connecting, hands and tongues sliding, they breathed each other's air and panted into each other's mouths, unable to get enough of their shared taste. Quietly, Ginny slipped back home via the fireplace.

"Really?" Hermione took a quick breath before kissing Fred again.

"Really," Fred confirmed. "I want you. Enough flirting; it's time. I'm all in. Move in tonight if you like, love. Ron'll deal with it. So will everyone else."

"OK, me too. I mean I want you. Are you ready, then?"

He pulled back slightly, unsure of what he was supposed to be ready for until he Hermione lifted her wand and levitated the matchbox that had been turned into the portkey that would take her to New York. Taking Fred by the hand, she stood and pulled him upright too. Gazing back at his grinning face with a smile almost as wide on her own, Hermione led him to the office window and moved the matchbox out and away until it was high in the air over the quidditch pitch.

Fred grinned even more widely, lifting his own wand with one hand while he held Hermione tightly to his side with the other. He sent a quick spell at the matchbox, turning it into a firework which sent colourful sparks out in several directions before they came back together and coalesced into a red heart which slowly drifted to the ground.

He bent down, nuzzling his face into Hermione's hair. "If I can get George to bugger off, would you like to come back to the flat with me after lunch and we'll spend the afternoon and evening snogging on the sofa?"

"All afternoon AND evening?" Hermione teased him, and he grinned.

"Well, that'll do for a start," he winked, "and we'll see where we go from there."

"Alright … that sounds lovely. Although," she looked out of the window at where the final glimmer of the heart could be seen floating on the breeze. "If I hadn't been so hasty, we could have had a weekend in New York together…"

Fred leaned forward and gave her another kiss, stroking her cheek as he did. "Next time, love. It's one thing to break the Brother Code, but I wouldn't dare ignore Mum's Sunday lunch three line whip!"


End file.
